Ubuntu vs Freespire

[Alan Mckinnon]

On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 11:41 +0200, Alain Muls wrote:
> On Wednesday 23 August 2006 10:47, Duncan Lithgow wrote:
> > On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 10:20 +0200, Alain Muls wrote:

> > > Hardware detection:
> > >
> > >       * neither OS detected the Wireless card or the sound card
> >
> > Yes, wireless hardware manufacturers are not playing ball with linux.
> > It's slowly getting better though. Did you write to the hardware
> > manufacturer and ask for linux drivers?
> 
> But if FreeSpire can detect it, than wgy cannot Ubuntu?

Probably because Ubuntu does not support that hardware and driver, so
does not bother detecting it. There's no sense in testing for the
existence of something you know you are not going to use.

> > >       * Ubuntu gave a 1280x1024x24b display while FreeSpire gava a
> > >         1600x1200x24b display. In XP I have 1920x1200 display =>
> > >         FreeSpire does better
> >
> > Maybe Freespire did better, or maybe it just defaults to something that
> > happens to be closer to your hardware. Did you ask the manufacturers for
> > linux drivers?
> 
> should I try to get the xorg.conf file from FreeSpire and use it with Ubuntu

That might work, but if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces :-)

Instead, study /var/log/Xorg.0.log and see what your screen and card
claim they can display. Then edit the appropriate line in xorg.conf and
restart the X server. FWIW I've always found that Ubuntu (since the
warty days) provides low resolutions on hardware I know can do much
better - except for laptop LCDs which have one fixed ideal resolution 

[snip]

> I know about the not inclusion of propieatary codecs/drivers/... The Wiki and 
> EasyUbuntu should do it. But I had no success with the trailers and DVD is 
> neither working on Ubuntu (the latter was not tested under FreeSpire)

mplayer is a beast to configure and make it ready for compilation. It
can support everything under the sun, but all these thing's aren't
necessarily enabled in ubuntu. You have three things interoperating
here: mplayer, the plugin and the browser. I have no idea why it isn;t
working for you, but I do know how complex the problem is. You'll have
to dig around in the .deb to find out how the maintainer configured
these packages to answer your question properly
> 
> >
> > >       * I have not tried out the CNR service, but I read that a one
> > >         click CrossOver Offcie can be installed which would be
> > >         something useful for my kids since they need
> > >         Word/Excel/Powerpoint for school.
> >
> > I seriously doubt that OpenOffice can't handle what they need. You
> > realise it has very good support for MS Office formats?
> 
> Oh, I tried them to use OpenOffice and I use it whenever I need to work on 
> Office files. But the problem is that the course notes are based on Word and 
> Excel (still at version 2000 and I only have an English version while our 
> native language is Dutch) and that makes it difficult for them to follow the 
> course notes. I suggested to the teacher to work with OpenOffice (available 
> freely on ALL platforms and can be used in the native language) but he has no 
> interest what so ever and has never heard of OpenOffice, let alone Linux. So 
> that is not an option for the home work and I do regret it.

No, you misunderstand the problem. OpenOffice can quite happily read and
write Office2000 formats. Take the original document and open it in OOo,
you can read it. Edit it and save the new version in Office2000 format.
It will open in Office just fine, and the teacher will never know you
didn't use Office to do it.

alan